Monthly Archives: October 2012

My goal with this slideshow is to illustrate the challenges University of Denver athletes face in juggling their time between academics and Division I athletics. The project is a case study on the Pioneer women’s soccer team, but it is meant to represent Denver athletes as a whole.

Many DU athletes begin their days before the rest of the students even wake up, heading to practice or traveling to away games. These athletes typically spend as much time in class each day as the rest of the student body, but, on top of that, they are practicing and playing for hours everyday.

To demonstrate this balance between athletics and academics, I did my best to photograph the team practicing, playing, traveling, studying and sleeping—incorporating the major aspects of their busy lives. Continue reading →

In my slideshow I worked to visually display the many different forms of diversity on-campus, including those which are often forgotten when the word “diversity” is said. I also tried to show the different ways the university is working to integrate inclusiveness into everyday life on campus. All of the sources I spoke to for my issues-based story discussed the many different ways diversity can exist on a campus that are not racial or ethnic diversity, which is the form most people think of immediately upon hearing the word. The university has also discussed their initiatives to integrate Inclusive Excellence at DU into daily life instead of implementing it through big projects or programs. I tried to find examples of this integration on campus and include them in the slideshow as well. Continue reading →

For my slideshow, I focused on the occurrence of suicide among college students and the prevalence of suicide at the University of Denver by including national statistics for suicide among college students and suicide statistics pertaining to the DU student body specifically. By including statistics for suicide, I was hoping to increase the level of awareness students have for suicide as an issue, and, therefore, increase the amount of importance they place on prevention efforts.

Once I established suicide as a prevalent issue, I narrowed in on the leading causes of suicide such as stress and depression as well the most common methods for committing suicide (wrist cutting, self-poisoning, and firearms) in efforts to increase awareness of the signs leading to suicidal thoughts and help students detect those who may be in the contemplative state. After promoting recognition, I focused on ways to help fellow students who may be currently contemplating suicide by highlighting the ways students can be there for other students. As an end goal for this slideshow, I was seeking to encourage students to identify the importance of suicide as an issue and gain an increased desire to promote greater awareness of suicide, and the measures we can take to prevent it from happening to our fellow students.

In efforts to highlight the occurrence of suicide and draw awareness to the issue, I took pictures that evoked the realism and the compelling nature of the issue. To evoke such meaning, I took pictures of students in distressful situations by depicting them as stressed, depressed, hurt, troubled, and/or other such emotions that can lead to contemplative thoughts towards suicide. For this reason, I included a picture of campus in a dreary light, a similarly gloomy picture of students walking to class, and students looking stressed as they studied or did homework. Continue reading →

With this story and slideshow, I’m trying to help current undergraduate students think about what they need to do in order to get into graduate or medical school, specifically focusing on test-taking and volunteer/club participation. I cover preparation for these tests, as well as use advice from professionals to explore what applicants can do to enhance their applications to medical and/or graduate school.

I decided to take photos of the subjects whom I interviewed for several of my photos while they were studying or otherwise preparing for their higher higher education. I also wanted to do several photos of the school to signify both undergraduate and graduate studies. I took a few photos of books and still objects to convey things like financial strain and the amount of time and money that students put into preparing for these tests.

This slide show is about the perceptions and realities of Greek Life on DU’s campus and other campuses. The information is based on interviews and surveys I conducted with Greeks and non-Greeks at DU. My goal with the information and the pictures was to basically show all sides of the traditional Greek stereotype. I included pictures of sorority and fraternity members gathered as a group. I also showed Greeks and non-Greeks hanging out and studying together. The slide show also shows some of the activities that stereotypical Greeks participate in and the differences between that and the DU Greek Community.

I chose to photograph the things I did because it showed Greeks doing the activities that they are known to do, on the DU campus. It was also recruitment season so it was easy to get pictures of Greeks together. Also I thought it was important to get a mixed group of students studying and working on a project to show that the DU Greek Life pillar of ‘scholarship’ matters to most members and they are willing to work with others in a constructive way. It was also important though, to capture photos of some stereotypical activities that Greeks are known to participate in on DU’s campus and others.

My issue story focused around skiing and whether or not last year’s poor ski season will affect students wanting to ski this upcoming ski season. The first few photos in the slideshow are put there to show some of the effects of the dry winter. I used a picture of some of my skis that got banged up pretty bad after last season to show how terrible the conditions were. Also I took a picture of Mt. Werner in Steamboat hazy from smoke to show how the drought had just as devastating results on the state this summer. Then I tried to showcase different ski areas through a combination of pictures of the resorts themselves and skiers at the resorts. Through this I really tried to show a variety of ski areas as well as show students skiing at these popular resorts. I then focus on the Epic Local pass that majority of DU students purchase. In my issue story I concluded by talking about future predictions for this upcoming year as well as the record setting year we had two years ago. The message I tried to get across was that we really can’t predict how much it will snow we just have to wait and see. So I concluded my slideshow parallel to how I opened it; showing photos of skiers skiing in summer after that record setting year.

Mfjs 2240 issue story slideshow from samanthalauren29My article focused on the effect that stereotypes have on sororities and university campuses. In my article I wanted to show that even though there are many negative stereotypes that they are not all true. Yes, some are true and some are truer than others, there are both the negative and positives to sororities. Interviewing sorority members helped to enhance my article and give another perspective on how sorority members think of stereotypes. Also by using a New York Times article about hazing and getting first hand reactions from sorority members is something that can show that Greek life at every campus is not the same. In my slideshow I wanted to show these aspects and let the audience decide for themselves whether they believed it was a positive or negative aspect.

This slideshow is meant to tell the story of how well University of Denver graduating seniors do when it comes to finding a job after they finish their respective undergraduate programs. The slideshow is meant to correspond closely with how students utilize what resources are available to them to find employment when they graduate. These resources include DU’s Career Center, job databases and job postings on pin-up boards.

My Issues Story focused on the life of art students at DU, from the stereotypes placed on art majors to the academic requirements of DU art students and why many students chose to major in art. Because the entirety of the article would have been difficult to represent in only 12 – 18 photographs, I chose to focus more on the art students themselves, briefly mentioning the stereotypes, the work load, DU’s art student community, and the decision to major in art. The photos, I think, allow the viewer to look at the story from a more up-close-and-personal perspective. Images of students at work and examples of their studios and finished products make them real, more than words and statistics. You can say people work hard, but it doesn’t become real until you see it. As an art major I already knew the hard work that goes into projects, so photographing my fellow students didn’t change my perspective really, but it did inspire me to document what goes on in the art school, and elsewhere on campus, more, because things do become so much more real when they can be seen.

When focusing on college students alone, the national average of college students suffering from severe depression linked to thoughts of suicide is about 13% of the student body. Out of this 13% of contemplative students, less than 1% actually completes suicide.